Harish Jose
In this article I want to look at the concept of equifinality in relation to the plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle. In systems theory, equifinality is defined as reaching the same end, no matter what...
Bruce Hamilton
Twice in the last month I’ve heard the phrase “traditional lean” used in public presentations. In neither case did the presenter explain the expression, but one displayed a slide with a Venn...
Quality Transformation With David Schwinn
The map is not the territory.
—Alfred Korzybski
This column is a tribute primarily to Jamshid Gharajedaghi, a long-time teacher, mentor, colleague, and friend. My wife Carole and I recently visited...
Jim Benson
We are all cursed with “surprises” at work. We come in, sit down, get ready for the day. We select a task to start on, and about halfway through, it explodes on us. The seemingly simple task now...
Fred Schenkelberg
What if all failures occurred truly randomly? Well, for one thing the math would be easier.
The exponential distribution would be the only time to failure distribution—we wouldn’t need Weibull or...
Bruno Scibilia
In yesterday’s column, I discussed how a DOE was chosen to optimize a chemical-mechanical polishing process in the microelectronics industry. This important process improved the plant’s final...
Ken Levine
One poorly understood concept in lean Six Sigma is how much to “stretch” when setting S.M.A.R.T. goals. These letters are defined as S—specific; M—measureable; A—assignable, attainable, or...
Kimberly Watson-Hemphill
Editor’s note: This is an excerpt from the new book, Innovating Lean Six Sigma, by Kimberly Watson-Hemphill and Kristine Nissen Bradley.
Like every company, healthcare businesses do their work...
Davis Balestracci
April Fool’s Day (today) and the opening of baseball season (this Sunday) are upon us. To mark the first event, I’ll let my distinguished colleague Donald Wheeler make some eloquent and crucial...
Matthew Barsalou
The start of a failure investigation may involve brainstorming, but empirical methods will be required to actually identify a problem's cause. Implementing an improvement action without a confirmed...
Eston Martz
There’s plenty of noisy disagreement about the state of healthcare, but when you look beyond the controversies, a great deal of common ground exists.
Many agree that the way we’ve been doing...
John Flaig
Sometimes when authors try to make a technical concept more understandable, it’s simplified but unfortunately, less accurate.
For example, when the developers of Six Sigma wanted to explain...
Beth Savage
Out-of-control gas prices reported in the news have our attention. Nearly every media outlet, from the small-town daily news to The Wall Street Journal, has a gas price story on a weekly basis: “...
Davis Balestracci
This article is based on some ideas from my respected colleague Mark Hamel. Despite the lean framework, these ideas apply to any improvement approach—all of which come from the same theory, lean...
Mike Micklewright
In October 2014, 17-year-old Laquan McDonald was shot 16 times by a Chicago police officer. In November 2015, footage of the shooting was released and has been viewed all over the world. The...
Davis Balestracci
Marketers are relentless in their efforts to seduce you with fancy tools, acronyms, Japanese terminology—and promises—about their versions of formal improvement structures such as Six Sigma, lean,...
Quality Transformation With David Schwinn
Wherever you stand, be the Soul of that place. —Rumi
I was blessed last week to spend two glorious days with my wife, Carole, our daughter, Lisa, and Lisa’s consulting partner, Rox. Those two...
Quality Transformation With David Schwinn
I teach management and leadership. Recently, the topic in one of my classes was change and stress. I asked my students, who are nearly all employed and range in age from 19 to 55, what caused them...
Steve Daum
In daily conversations, I field questions from plant managers, quality managers, engineers, supervisors, and plant production workers about the challenges of applying statistical process...
William A. Levinson
The Shewhart control chart is relatively insensitive to non-normal distributions, and the worst foreseeable consequences of a wrong decision involve searching for an assignable or special cause...
